The temperature dropped before the words even left Kuzan's mouth. The frost spread across the marble floor like living veins, creeping up the table legs until every dish was rimed in white. The laughter that had filled the hall a moment ago was gone — replaced by the sharp, brittle silence of a world about to break.
"Can I ask you," Kuzan said, voice low, almost a hiss, "to turn off the jamming transponder snails… so that I can make a call out?"
It wasn't a question. Not really. It was a probe — the kind a predator makes before the bite. Senor exhaled softly beside me, his tone polite but carrying the faint edge of warning.
"I'm afraid it isn't that simple, Admiral Kuzan. The system's integrated throughout the palace. Shutting it down would take more than a polite request."
I didn't need to look to feel it — the faint stir of killing intent rising from the Admiral's body. The frost thickened. Dishes cracked. A single spoon fell, the sound unnaturally loud against the growing stillness.
"And what if I insist?"
The table froze solid. Wine turned to ruby crystal. The chandelier above groaned as icicles began to form along its gold frame.
I could see Garp's expression shift from amusement to quiet focus. The old warhound might act the fool, but I knew that look — the one he wore when the mask slipped and the soldier surfaced.
Issho gently set his teacup down, his calm voice cutting through the tension.
"Such a cold wind… perhaps we should all be careful not to let it freeze our manners, Admiral."
But Kuzan didn't respond. The temperature kept falling. I sighed softly. It was getting tedious.
"You jest… Kuzan-san," I said, setting both my sheathed blades on the table with a quiet thunk.
The sound was soft, but it carried — and the frost stopped. A ripple of Haki spread outward, silent and heavy. It didn't roar or burst — it simply was. The kind of pressure that didn't announce itself, but crushed everything beneath it all the same.
The ice didn't melt — it disintegrated, collapsing into mist that drifted upward and vanished. Even the air itself seemed to shudder under the weight of my will. I let my eyes meet his just for a fleeting moment. Calm. Patient. Measured.
"It seems," I said, voice low, "that becoming an Admiral has dulled your instincts." His pupils narrowed. The mist from his breath faltered.
"Just because you're a guest here doesn't mean you get to act as if this palace belongs to you," I continued, leaning forward slightly. "You weren't invited here, Kuzan-san. You barged in unannounced. Any other Marine ship would've been sunk long before reaching these shores — you should know that better than anyone."
My tone stayed even. My smile never left. But every word carried weight — not rage, not threat, just certainty. The kind of certainty only a man who has stared death down more than once can have.
Kuzan didn't move, but I saw it — the faint tremor of his shoulders, the bead of sweat trailing down his neck despite the cold. His instincts were screaming, same as any animal who realizes too late that it's walked into another predator's den. Because that's what this hall was — a den.
And he was surrounded by monsters. What unsettled him most wasn't me. It was the fact that my gaze — from the moment I placed my blades on the table — hadn't once left Garp.
To Kuzan, that look meant arrogance. To me, it was necessity because he was the only real threat here. If things went wrong here, if the old dog decided to move, there was no second strike. No retreat. One mistake, and the entire palace would turn to rubble.
I could feel my brother's amusement next to me — that quiet, dangerous chuckle.
"Fufufufu… such tension over a dinner table. You should relax, Admiral Aokiji — my brother's just reminding you where you are."
The Admiral's breath came out slow, deliberate, his eyes darting briefly toward Garp, who had leaned back again, a faint grin on his lips but his presence sharp as a blade.
"Well," the old man said finally, "looks like I picked one hell of a spot for a vacation." But then unfortunately I will have to cut it short. I suppose I have some urgent matters to attend to back at HQ."
Garp was never a man known for patience — or subtlety. If not for my presence as a deterrent, I was absolutely certain he'd have already grabbed Doffy by the throat and torn this palace apart, jammer or no jammer. The old man's temper was infamous, but even he knew when to measure risk.
And right now, he was doing the math. He didn't know what was happening outside these walls — and starting a fight here would mean war. A fight between us would tear through this island for weeks, maybe longer. I could feel the way his Haki coiled under his skin, like a sea quake held barely in check.
He exhaled heavily. The sound filled the hall. Then, with that unshakable bluntness only he could manage, Garp turned toward my brother.
"Mind telling me what's going on out there? I'm sure entertaining your guests' requests is also part of noble etiquette… is it not?"
Doffy tilted his head, the golden lenses of his shades catching the chandelier's light. His grin widened, lazy and dangerous.
"Fufufufu… who would've guessed the Marine Hero who despises nobles knew a thing or two about etiquette?"
I almost smiled at that — almost. Garp's jaw tightened, but he didn't rise to the bait. He wanted to. I saw the flicker of irritation behind his eyes, the same look he used to give me during drills. But he knew better. Trading words with Doffy was like punching at smoke — you'd tire yourself before he even moved. It wasn't worth the effort.
"Well," my brother said, still lounging like a man without a care in the world, "I suppose you're right. I should fulfill the requests of guests under my roof."
He raised his hand lazily. Senor nodded and disappeared from sight. When he returned moments later, he carried the latest edition of the World Times, the ink still fresh. He handed it to Garp with the grace of a seasoned butler.
For a moment, Garp didn't even glance at it. Then his eyes dropped to the headline — and the world seemed to tilt. The scrape of his chair echoed through the hall — SCREEEEECH — the marble floor splitting slightly beneath its legs as it skidded back and crashed into the wall.
Every gaze in the room sharpened. Garp's expression had changed — not anger, not shock, but something heavier. The kind of realization that hits like a cannonball.
"Kuzan," he said, his voice suddenly iron, "we're leaving. NOW…!!!."
He turned toward the door, every step radiating intent. But I was already there. I flickered from my seat to the entrance in an instant — a streak of motion, a gust of displaced air — planting myself squarely between him and the exit. The weight of his glare was enough to make even seasoned men flinch. But I didn't move.
"Rosinante…" His voice was quiet, but the threat in it was palpable. "I'm in a really bad mood right now. Are you really going to stand in my way?"
Even Kuzan froze. His eyes darted between us, realizing that the line had finally been crossed.
Issho's hand rested on the hilt of his sword, the faint rasp of metal whispering as it slid half out of its sheath. The air itself grew heavier — the kind of pressure that made lungs burn.
Garp's Haki rolled out like a stormfront — primal, grounded, terrifying in its simplicity. But I stood unmoved, my coat rippling in the unseen wind.
"Step aside, brat," he said, voice roughened by years of war. "If we fight here, this country won't exist by morning. And I'd rather not be the one to bury it."
He was right. A single clash between us would level half of Dressrosa. But that wasn't enough reason for me to move.
"Then perhaps," I said quietly, "your man should have thought of that before threatening my family's table."
Our gazes locked. His will against mine — the unstoppable force meeting the immovable wall.
A bead of sweat trickled down Kuzan's temple. Even he could feel it now — the invisible gravity crushing the very space between us.
For a heartbeat, everything else fell away. No sound. No motion. Just two men standing between war and peace. Then —
"Fufufufufu…"
That laugh. Low, echoing, threaded with amusement and something darker.
"Let the Marine Hero go, Ross."
Doffy's voice rolled across the hall, smooth as silk and sharp as glass. I turned my head slightly, one brow arching in surprise. He was smiling — that infuriating, knowing smile of his. The smile of a man who saw ten moves ahead on a chessboard no one else could even comprehend.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't flare his Haki. He simply commanded — and the atmosphere itself seemed to obey.
"Fufufu… We wouldn't want to keep the world waiting, would we?" he said, tapping a finger to his chin. "After all, chaos is a guest that only knocks once."
I understood then — he wanted Garp to go. To see the truth of what was happening in Waater 7 with his own eyes. To spread the panic further, because as it stood the marine forces on Water 7 were completely outmatched. It wasn't mercy. It was strategy; my brother wanted the chaos in Water 7 to blow out of proportion so that we could achieve our true goal within that madness.
I stepped aside slowly, the tension bleeding out of the air. My gaze lingered on Garp — the faintest of nods passing between us, a silent acknowledgment. If Doffy had wanted to keep him here, no one would've left this island unscatched. Even Garp knew that.
The Marine Hero turned back to my brother, and for the briefest instant, there was mutual understanding — two titans on opposite sides of the same abyss. Then, without another word, Garp walked past me and through the grand doors. Kuzan followed, silent, frost still clinging to his coat.
As the doors shut, Doffy leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs with that same easy grin.
"Fufufufu… I do love it when the world starts to burn," he murmured, eyes gleaming behind his lenses. And in that moment, I knew — whatever chaos was erupting across the seas, my brother had already planned for it. No, not planned. Engineered it. Because for Doflamingo, the world was just a string — and everyone else? Puppets dancing in his sunlit kingdom.
****
Water 7, Grand Line
The northern canal district of Water 7 was a graveyard. Once bustling with shipwrights, taverns, and the hum of craftsmen's hammers, now it lay swallowed by silence and smoke. Buildings burned with dying embers. The canals ran dark — not with water, but with oil and blood. The scent of gunpowder clung to the mist like rot.
Inside a crumbling warehouse tucked between two half-sunken docks, the remnants of a pirate crew huddled together in the dark. The flicker of a single oil lamp cast their faces in ghostly hues.
They had come here for dreams of power — to commission, or perhaps steal, a galleon worthy of braving the Grand Line. But that was before their captain — a man worth sixty-five million berries — had been cut down in the street like some nameless thug.
Now, all that remained of the "Red Drake Pirates" were twelve terrified men, crouched in the shadows, praying the chaos outside didn't find them next.
"What the hell is happening out there?" the first mate snarled, pacing in front of the others. His voice trembled despite the bravado. "The Marines… the damn World Government… they've blockaded the whole island! Any ship that tries to leave — even merchant vessels — they're blowing them out of the water!"
He dragged his hands through his hair, eyes bloodshot and wild. "It's madness! The whole island's gone mad!" Around him, his crew sat in silence — pale, hollow-eyed, and shivering. In the distance, they could hear faint explosions echoing across the canals, the sound of ships burning, of men screaming.
They didn't yet understand what had swallowed Water 7. They didn't know that the world itself had turned its gaze here — that every pirate, agent, and kingdom's scout was converging on the city in search of one thing: The Ancient Weapon Blueprint.
Rumor had become frenzy. Frenzy had become massacre. Pirates butchered each other in the alleys to erase competition. Cipher Pol agents hunted anything with a Jolly Roger to make sure no one else stumbled upon the truth. And in this storm of madness, the first mate and his men were nothing — rats scurrying between the boots of gods.
The door creaked. Every gun in the room snapped toward it. For a moment, no one breathed — then a familiar voice hissed through the dark.
"Relax… it's me!"
A gaunt crewman stumbled in, panting, drenched in rain and sweat. The others sagged in relief — too early.
"We need to leave," he gasped. "Now. If we stay here, we're dead! The Marines are purging the city block by block — they're not taking prisoners!"
The first mate lunged forward, grabbing him by the collar and shaking him hard.
"Calm down, damn it! Tell me what's going on! What's causing all this!?"
The man's eyes were wide — feverish. "The Ancient Weapon!" he stammered. "They're hunting for it — the blueprint's supposed to be here, somewhere on Water 7! The Government's going to initiate a Buster Call to wipe the island clean, and word is… even the Yonko from the New World are moving!"
The words hit like cannon fire. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the air grew heavy with something else — not fear, but greed. The first mate's trembling slowed. His eyes gleamed in the lamp light.
"The Ancient Weapon…" he murmured. "If it's real… if we get it before they do…"
He saw it now — not a death sentence, but an opportunity. He'd heard the stories — Sorbet Kingdom, Fleevance — annihilated in seconds. The kind of power that could turn gods into prey. Yes. It was madness. But it was also salvation. With that weapon, no Marine, no Yonko, no World Government could touch them.
He turned to rally the crew — to tell them their fortune had changed — but stopped. No one was listening. Every man sat frozen, eyes wide, unblinking, their faces pale as wax. Their gazes weren't on him. They were fixed behind him. A chill crawled down his spine.
He turned — or tried to. But the motion stopped halfway. Something warm splattered across the table. A whisper of steel. A sigh of breath. Then his world spun sideways. The others screamed as his head hit the floor with a dull thud.
A man stepped from the shadows. His movements were soundless, almost graceful — a ghost in a black suit, his expression cold, unremarkable, forgettable. The sort of face that would vanish into a crowd. His gloves were immaculate, though blood dripped from the blade in his hand.
The Cipher Pol agent's eyes were empty — not cruel, not angry, simply efficient. He looked at the remaining pirates as one might look at stains on a floor.
"Unauthorized individuals are to be terminated on sight," he said quietly, as though reciting a line from a manual. No emotion. No hesitation. Then he moved.
The gunfire that followed was brief — chaotic — then nothing. Only the sound of the rain tapping against broken glass, washing the blood toward the canals. By the time the next patrol passed the street, the building was silent. The bodies lay where they fell.
The warehouse was silent again. Only the faint hiss of rain leaking through the cracked roof filled the void. The Cipher Pol agent stood amid the bodies, his black suit immaculate save for the crimson that streaked the edge of his blade.
With mechanical precision, he tore a rag from the first mate's tattered coat and wiped the weapon clean. Each stroke was slow, deliberate—ritual more than necessity. When the steel caught the lamplight once more, he sheathed it in a single fluid motion.
From inside his jacket he drew a compact transponder snail, its shell lacquered black and marked with the Cipher Pol insignia. The creature blinked once, sluggish from the damp.
"Unit Seven, reporting," the agent said quietly, voice flat. "Northern canal sector. Targets neutralized. Area secure." He waited.
The snail's eyes fluttered, but no response came—only a faint crackle, like distant static. He frowned. Adjusted the frequency dial. Tried again.
"Command post, this is Unit Seven. Do you copy?"
Static. A faint pulse of interference trembled through the air. The agent's brow furrowed. The Cipher Pol ships anchored along the blockade maintained the strongest signal relays in the Grand Line—communication failure was impossible. Unless—
He froze. Something was wrong with the air. A faint, silvery haze was seeping under the door, curling like smoke across the floorboards. It wasn't the gray of fog or dust—it shimmered faintly red, as if laced with blood. The agent's instincts screamed. He dropped the snail, hand going to his sword.
Too late.
The blood mist thickened in an instant, swallowing the room whole. Visibility vanished; even the bodies at his feet blurred into silhouettes. He reached out with his Kenbunshoku Haki, trying to sense movement —but the world remained empty. Nothing. Not even his own heartbeat.
And then, pain. A sharp crack of metal piercing flesh. He looked down in disbelief to see the tip of a crimson blade jutting through his chest, emerging from his sternum like a spear of light. It pulsed—alive—glowing faintly through his shirt.
He tried to breathe. The air burned like ice. His fingers twitched toward his weapon, but strength was already leaving him. The attacker was close—so close he should have felt them, should have seen them—but the haze warped all sense, swallowing presence and sound alike.
Then he saw it. The blood spilling from his wound wasn't falling. It drifted upward—threads of red spiraling into the fog, drawn toward some unseen center. Each droplet shimmered before dissolving, devoured by the mist itself. His heart slowed. His knees buckled. The last thing he heard was a low, whispering breath in the fog—definitely female—soft and cold as the grave.
"Sleep, little hound…" The crimson blade slid free. His body hit the floor with a dull thud, eyes still open but already empty. By the time the blood fog receded, only silence remained. The Cipher Pol agent's blood was gone—absorbed, erased—as though he had never existed. And from the shadows of the ruined warehouse, something unseen moved on, hunting the next voice of the World Government.
Just outside the periphery of Water 7 shores, the sea was hellfire.
The thunder of cannons split the heavens as the Marine armada unleashed another devastating volley. Dozens of pirate vessels—madmen desperate to break through the blockade—were shattered in the crossfire. Masts splintered like toothpicks, hulls cracked, and the smell of burning pitch and blood mixed with the salt of the Grand Line air.
The iron giants of the World Government stood shoulder to shoulder in a perfect crescent formation around Water 7, their banners whipping in the storm winds. The sea boiled with explosions, and each cannon's roar echoed like a god's wrath.
"Load the starboard batteries! Keep the line steady—don't let a single ship through!" barked Rear Admiral Igaro, his voice cutting through the chaos like steel. Marines scrambled across the decks, hauling crates of ammunition, shouting over the roar of gunfire as enemy ships disintegrated beneath them.
And yet, amidst the organized fury, one young marine—barely a man—paused. His breath caught in his throat as he turned, a crate of cannonballs frozen in his hands. The sight behind him drained the color from his face.
Beyond the curtain of flame and smoke from battle, Water 7—the legendary city of shipwrights—was no longer visible. What stood in its place was a colossal, swirling wall of white mist, rising like a living thing from the canals and towers.
It wasn't fog. Not the kind the Grand Line's seas birthed at whim. This was thicker, denser—unnatural. The marine stumbled forward, shouting, "Shōshō! Shōshō!" His voice cracked, lost amidst the thunder of cannons.
No one turned. The crews were too consumed with reloading and firing, their faces lit orange by explosions. He shouted again, louder this time, desperation in his tone.
"Shōshō! Look at the island! The island!"
Rear Admiral Igaro spun, fury etched across his weathered features. "What the hell do you think you're doing, soldier?! You think this is the time to—"
Then he saw it. His words died in his throat. The island that had been the heart of the blockade—their entire mission—was gone, swallowed whole by the spectral fog. The massive shipyard towers that once speared toward the sky were now just faint silhouettes, ghostly outlines in a sea of shifting white. The light from their artillery reflected against it, turning the smog into a glowing veil that pulsed faintly with crimson hues—as if the mist itself was breathing.
A chill swept through the crew. One by one, Marines stopped what they were doing, their gazes locked on the phenomenon. Even the booming cannons began to fall silent, replaced by the eerie hiss of the fog rolling outward—slowly spreading across the waves toward the blockade line.
"Impossible…" Igaro muttered, stepping to the rail. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the deck. "There wasn't a weather warning… nothing on the transponders… What in the world is this…?"
Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the unnatural fog as it crawled across the sea. For a fleeting moment, it looked alive—shifting with purpose, tendrils of mist snaking outward like reaching hands. Then the sound came.
A deep, low hum, resonating from somewhere within the island—too rhythmic to be natural, too heavy to be wind. It reverberated through the metal hulls of the Marine ships, through their bones, through the very ocean itself.
Rear Admiral Igaro's heart skipped a beat. He tore the receiver from his belt and barked into it, "All ships—cease fire! I repeat, cease fire! Report visual confirmation on Water 7 immediately!"